Columbia- the biggest whammy. (Anonymous Bwog commenters, parents did indeed allow their precious children to apply to our degenerative school despite the scandals – they even did so in record numbers.) “Total applications for the Columbia Class of 2015 rose 32 percent from last year, increasing from 26,179 to 34,587 applications.”

IvyGate did a little a digging a Google search and found some stats from the Brown Daily Herald. They write that their “numbers are similar to last year’s. Of the 2,847 students who applied early decision last year, 567 were admitted to the class of 2014, an acceptance rate of 20 percent.”

Princeton’s, Cornell’s, and Yale’s statistics are still not available, so we’ve provided links for each college’s 2015 Hopefuls forum on College Confidential for your personal amusement.

However, the Yale Daily News did publish an interesting article suggesting that admissions statistics may not be that meaningful. The next thing they’ll say is that college rankings are completely arbitrary and meaningless, suggesting that the whole “top-tier” v. “second-tier” debate mess and the gloating that comes each year with the USNWR Rankings is useless chatter. Oh wait…

IvyGate will try to assure these poor stressed-out souls with some rationale for the most frightening lottery that is your future.

Columbia’s numbers are mostly due to its switch to the Common Application. Since high schools seniors are strangely neurotic and lazy at the same time, they are likely to apply to every single Ivy-like school available on the Common App. We all know that Stanford’s “Dear Roommate” supplement essay on the Common App is considerably less painful than making the extra step to complete a more enjoyable application not featured on Common App.

The Social Network could have been responsible for Harvard’s jump, or the mere fact that its it is Harvard. Since IG told Penn to be more interesting next year, we don’t know what could have caused an increase in their applications unless for the class of 2015 being ruthlessly competitive. Perhaps the death of Four Loko made Dartmouth’s Keystone Light more appealing, and obviously Harry Potter 7 kept Brown’s numbers constant.

In all seriousness, IvyGate has no idea why applications multiplied this year.

Nevertheless, with all sincerity, good luck high school seniors! We’ll see how it works out come April - I’m just glad I don’t have to go through your misery again.

Unconditional Raves

IvyGate has been featured in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, New York Observer, Newsweek, New Yorker, and other publications, as well as NBC, MSNBC, Fox News, Drudge Report, Gawker, The Huffington Post, Wonkette, Jezebel, The Awl, and many more. Most are horrified.